Category: Lesson plans
#81: Problem Solving Board
Have students teach each other the 25 most common techie problems. They learn how to solve the problem and teach the class as a presentation, then answer questions. They will feel accomplished and tech savvy.
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#101: Don’t Print Homework–Email it!
By third grade, students can email their homework to you rather than turn in all those pesky hard copies. No more lost work, no more dog-ate-their-homework, no more blaming their mom. They can use their own account or a parents. Once they learn how, it is automatic–and they love doing it this way.Here’s the lesson:
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#79: Excel Turns Data Into Information
Sometimes, it takes a picture to really show what you’re trying to say. It doesn’t have to be drawn with pencils or paint brushes. Sometimes, it’s a graph or a chart, formatted to clarify important points.
That’s called Excel. Words and numbers are always black and white and the same size. Excel never is. There are twenty-two Excel skills I teach grades 3-5 that turn Excel into a useful tool in their classroom. This covers the first fourteen.
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#98: Email Basx
Teach students using whichever email program is installed at school, but warn students that theirs will be different. Also warn parents they will have to guide students to the correct spots on their particular version. This will avoid confusion when students go home and try to email homework. Teach To:, From:, cc:, bcc:, subject:, attachments, and basic rules of emailing (I’ll share a list that I’ve created from working with students and parents. It should keep you out of the trouble I got into in my early years).
If the lesson plans are blurry, click on them for a full size alternative.
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#74: Mastering Excel (for Beginners)
There are 22 common Excel skills easy enough for fourth and fifth graders. When they’re done, they–and their parents (and you, by the way)–will feel that they’ve accomplished much more.
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11 Ways to Wrap Up the School Year
It’s the end of school. Everyone’s tired, including you. What you want for these last few weeks are activities that keep the learning going, but in a different way. You want to shake things up so students are excited and motivated and feel interested again.
Change your approach to teaching. Provide some games, simulations, student presentations–whatever you don’t normally do in your classroom. If you’re doing PowerPoints, use the last few weeks for presentations. Make them special–invite teachers. Invite parents. If you never serve food in your lab, do it for these presentations.
Here are five of my favorite year-end Change-up activities:
6 Webtools in 6 Weeks
Give students a list of 10-15 webtools that are age-appropriate. I include Prezi, Google MapMaker, Scratch, Voice Thread, Glogster, and Tagxedo, These will be tools they don’t know how to use (and maybe you don’t either). They work in groups to learn the tool (using help files, how-to videos, and resources on the site), create a project using the tool (one that ties into something being discussed in class), and then teach classmates. Challenge students to notice similarities between their chosen tools and others that they know how to use. This takes about three weeks to prepare and another three weeks to present (each presentation takes 20-30 minutes). Students will be buzzing with all the new material and eager to use it for summer school or the next year.
Designed for grades 3-12. Need ideas on web tools? Contact me at [email protected].
#73: How to Graph in Excel
Excel graphs are easy enough for third graders. So try it. Collect your data, enter it into an excel worksheet and push F11. If you have more time, show students how to format the graph. This is a favorite with my third graders.
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What is the 21st Century Lesson Plan?
Technology and the connected world put a fork in the old model of teaching–instructor in front of the class, sage on the stage, students madly taking notes, textbooks opened to the chapter being reviewed, homework as worksheets based on the text, tests regurgitating important facts.
Did I miss anything?
This model is outdated not because it didn’t work (many statistics show students ranked higher on global testing years ago than they do now), but because the environment changed. Our classrooms are more diverse. Students are digital natives, already in the habit of learning via technology. The ‘college and career’ students are preparing for is different so the education model must be different.
Preparing for this new environment requires radical changes in teacher lesson plans. Here are seventeen concepts you’ll want to include in your preparation:
#55: Keyboarding in the Classroom
Mix a variety of keyboarding tools so students get the most out of keyboarding time in the classroom. I include software (TTL4), online keyboarding websites (Dancemat typing) and fun tests (TypingTest.com). The goal is to get students to age-appropriate national standards for typing speed with practice three times per week, fifteen minutes each time. Click the image below to enlarge:
6 Stand-alone Lesson Plans for Subs
As a tech educator, it’s difficult to find a substitute teacher who is comfortable delivering my tech-infused lesson plans to students. Even if the sub is knowledgeable in the subject matter, s/he doesn’t have intimate knowledge of what this particular student group knows about software, websites, problem solving, and more, which can be scaffolded for the current lesson. Nor does she know my organic expectations of students such as the level of independence and self-direction I expect during class. When I started teaching tech, my generic sub lesson plan looked like this:
- practice keyboarding for fifteen minutes
- visit inquiry-themed websites
That was fine–don’t get me wrong; it promotes student learning while avoiding a meltdown by the teacher–but I now have better options that keep momentum going while I am away for PD or recovering from an unexpected illness. This collection of six stand-alone lesson plans are designed to complete important techie learning tasks, assess existing knowledge, or integrate technology rigor into class inquiry. They require little domain-specific knowledge on the part of the sub, asking primarily that s/he supervise activities and encourage critical thinking, problem solving, and transfer of knowledge on the part of students. Next time you need an emergency lesson plan, try one of these:
